


Thanks to You

by 1848pianist



Series: Miserable Lesbians [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Genderbending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1848pianist/pseuds/1848pianist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an unproductive gap year, Grantaire decides to go back to school. She'll need a little help from her friends to do so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thanks to You

Grantaire jabbed at the punching bag, wincing as a careless strike landed on the wrong knuckle. She wanted to feel the punch, not break her hand.

She loved the power of it – a bag couldn’t fight back. If her technique was good, she was completely in control.

She ended with a hook kick, sending the bag spinning away from her. Adrenaline still buzzed through as she tore off her gloves, energy racing through her aching muscles. Soreness was fine. She could handle that. Maybe she’d go for a run before heading back to her apartment.

She jumped when someone had been clapping, thinking she had been alone. Glancing at the door, she saw Bahorel grinning from across the gym.

“Angry at someone?” she asked, watching the still-rotating bag.

“No one in particular,” Grantaire replied. Not a person, at least.

“Well, remind me not to provoke you, ever. I may look intimidating, but you’re clearly the dangerous one, R.” The _R_ was a joke; Grantaire barely cleared 5’2”, a full foot shorter than Bahorel. Plus, the taller girl wore heels everywhere, even to the gym.

“Will do, _Bahorel_.” The last-names thing had started back in high school, when all their teachers had been weirdly formal. It stuck, probably because they were already familiar by the time anyone bothered learning first names.

“Hey, two weeks, right?” Bahorel asked as Grantaire finished packing up.

“Hm?”

“Two weeks until application deadline. Weren’t you going back to school this year?”

Grantaire hadn’t looked at the forms. Or the schools, for that matter. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

Bahorel seemed to guess what she was thinking. “Well, good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Grantaire hurried out of the gym, deciding to skip the run.

 

God, she wished Bahorel hadn’t brought up college. It was too big, too much, and too soon. She had promised Combeferre and Bahorel at the beginning of the summer – Combeferre especially, who never pressured her into it but had been pleased anyway – that she would apply. In the meantime, she said, she would get a job. Clean up. Quit drinking.

It was October. She had gotten a job. For a while, at least.

She needed a drink, but if she broke another part of her promises tonight she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. It had been a long time since she had painted, she thought; that would be a good distraction. Pulling her hair up so it wouldn’t get in her paint, she sat in front of her canvas. She waited. Nothing whatsoever in the form of inspiration came.

Panic began to build in her, in waves that felt nothing like her earlier adrenaline. This didn’t happen to her. When she wanted to paint, she was inspired, and that was it. Those _applications_ …

Not knowing what else to do, and not realizing that it was late, she called Combeferre. It rang twice before she picked up, sounding tired but, thankfully, awake.

“Hey, Grantaire, what’s up?”

She didn’t intend to start crying. Actually, that was exactly what she least wanted to do, but the tears came anyway and she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop.

“R? Are you okay?”

Grantaire gathered enough breath to squeeze out, “You know those college applications?” before she broke down again.

“I do,” Combeferre said, calm as always.

“I—” Grantaire began, afraid to finish the sentence. “I have two weeks. I haven’t started.” Combeferre was silent for a second, and Grantaire felt the panic rising in her throat again.

“‘Ferre?”

“Here. Do you want me to come over?”

“N-no, ‘Ferre, you don’t have to.”

“It’s okay. I’ll bring my stuff and we can talk about it. It’ll be alright, okay?”

“Okay,” Grantaire sobbed. “Thank you.”

“I’m going to stay on the phone, okay? I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Okay.”

 

True to her word, Combeferre arrived within minutes, only hanging up the phone when Grantaire answered the door. Some part of her realized that Combeferre must have run from her dorm – it was pretty far to R’s apartment from Chicago’s Hyde Park. Wordlessly, Combeferre hugged her, resting her chin on Grantaire’s head. She cried into Combeferre’s shoulder, feeling awful and self-conscious but unable to do anything else.

“I’m sorry,” Grantaire said weakly as the tears slowed to a stop, pulling away.

“Shh,” Combeferre replied. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Not if I don’t finish my applications.”

Combeferre tilted Grantaire’s chin up, looking her in the eye. “Grantaire, you don’t have to go to college this year. No one is making you.”

“But I promised.”

“It’s not like you signed an oath in blood, R. Do you want to go to university?”

Grantaire shrugged helplessly.

“Okay,” Combeferre said decisively. “Let’s at least see what your options are, what you have to do. Then we can go from there.” She pulled Grantaire into the living room, setting up her laptop before R could think about protesting.

“Any idea where you want to apply?” Combeferre asked gently.

“I…haven’t looked,” Grantaire replied quietly. “I guess I was just going to go where you and Courfeyrac and Bahorel go?”

“Okay, that’s a good place to start. It’s competitive, but your SAT scores were great, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Grantaire shrugged.

“This isn’t so bad. We can do this in two weeks.”

“You don’t have to do this, ‘Ferre,” Grantaire said miserably.

“It’s fine, R. I’m here to help.”

“It’s not your responsibility to look after me. You have better things to do.”

Combeferre looked pained, but gave no response other than to tug at a curl which had come loose from her ponytail. Grantaire instantly felt a rush of guilt and shrank back into the opposite arm of the couch.

“So, um, my grades might be a problem,” she said apologetically, after a long pause. She ducked her head, not wanting to see Combeferre’s expression. _Might be_ was far from reality.

“Shouldn’t be,” Combeferre said reassuringly. “There’s plenty of other stuff on the application, and like I said, your test scores are through the roof. Nothing to panic over.”

“Are you sure?”

Combeferre glanced at Grantaire. “Of course. You’re plenty intelligent, R. You can do this.”

Grantaire shook her head.

“You _are_.”

“Don’t, ‘Ferre.”

Combeferre fell silent, turning back to the laptop in resignation.

 

Three hours later, with Combeferre’s help, Grantaire had managed to fill out most of the application.

“So all that’s left is the essay,” Combeferre reported, pushing her glasses up into her hair to rub tired eyes, then having to disentangle the frames from her curls. “And you have two weeks. Thirteen days now, technically.”

Grantaire was leaning against her, reading the laptop screen over her shoulder. “You are a miracle worker,” she yawned. “Like, your skills will be documented for future generations.”

Combeferre smiled, putting an arm around Grantaire. “See, I said that you could do it.”

R hesitated, biting her lip. “What if I don’t get in?”

“You will.”

“What about my grades? And I took a year off. I don’t have anything a college would want besides a few good test scores.”

“Don’t worry, R. You’ve done all you can tonight. We’ll work on the essay tomorrow, and then we can take it from there.”

“And what if I can’t do the work? Or just… don’t do it? What makes college any different from high school?” Grantaire closed her eyes, trying not to cry in front of Combeferre again. Especially after all ‘Ferre had done that night. For her.

“I’m not just going to leave you on your own, Grantaire. If you need help, you can ask for it. And I know you can do the work – you’re one of the smartest people I know.”

Grantaire had no response.

Combeferre sighed, gathering her things and standing to leave. “Come on, it’s late. I should get home, and you should go to bed.”

R looked up. “You could stay here if you want.”

“That’s alright. The dorms aren’t far.”

“Yeah, but it’s really dark. And it isn’t any trouble, it’s the least I can do…”

“Okay.” Combeferre smiled, and Grantaire grinned back weakly, feeling a rush of gratitude she couldn’t put words to.

           

Grantaire stumbled into the living room the next morning, tired enough that she wasn’t thinking about the night before. She remembered with a start at the sight of Combeferre stretched out on the couch, still asleep.

‘Ferre was smiling slightly, even in her sleep, curly, black-brown hair draped over her face. Without her glasses and in the half-light she seemed nearly unfamiliar to R. She had nice legs. Runner’s legs.

Grantaire went to get dressed and hide in the kitchen before Combeferre woke up.

“Got anything caffeinated?” Combeferre asked as she came in, already dressed and presentable. Grantaire felt this was extremely unfair.

“Obviously,” she answered. “Also, morning people make the rest of us look bad. Tea or coffee?”

“Whatever you’re having. And the caffeine is the secret to my success, by the way.”

“Lucky for you.” Grantaire handed Combeferre coffee in a mug she figured had probably been cleaned.

“Thanks – oh, yuck, ever heard of sugar?”

“Why ruin the coffee?” Grantaire smirked.

Combeferre snorted. “Right.”

“Here,” Grantaire said, tossing a couple of sugar packets in Combeferre’s direction. Grantaire wasn’t as much a purist as she claimed to be; she just tended to drink coffee for caffeine rather than flavor.

“I don’t have much in the way of food,” she continued, trying to remember the last breakfast food she had bought.

“S’alright,” Combeferre said. “I’ll just pick something up on the way to class in an hour.”

 Grantaire spun around to look at her. “You had a morning class and you stayed up half the night to help me?”

Combeferre shrugged, swallowing the last of her coffee. “It was no trouble.” She looked faintly embarrassed. “It’s not like college students are known for our regular sleep schedules, anyway.”

“Still,” Grantaire said, and then broke off, not knowing what she was trying to say.

“I had better get going,” Combeferre said, gathering her things. “Work on that essay, okay?”

“Okay,” she replied flatly.

“Call me if you need anything.” Combeferre pulled her into a hug before running out the door. Grantaire felt her absence as sudden loneliness.

 

Without Combeferre as encouragement, Grantaire could find none of the hope she had begun to feel the night before. She opened the application, staring at the prompt and the blinking cursor until she could no longer stand it. It felt too much like the empty canvas from the night before, waiting to be filled. But she had nothing to add to it. Anything she painted, anything she wrote would just be a blemish, a waste of paper and paint. With nothing else to do, and feeling the exhaustion from a late and busy night, she went back to bed.

It was well past noon when she woke up, judging by the lack of light in her east-facing bedroom. She had a text from Combeferre, and winced as she opened it, expecting questions about the essay.

_Meet me for coffee this afternoon? Real coffee, I mean._

Below that: _Tomorrow works too._

Grantaire hesitated before replying: _ok. its on me tho_

_If you insist. See you at the Musain?_

 

Grantaire arrived before Combeferre and decided to wait outside for her. Wishing she had thought to bring a jacket, she hoped Combeferre wouldn’t be long. She was about to leave, thinking the other girl must have been too busy, when Combeferre ran up looking harried.

“Hey,” she said. “Sorry I’m late. Western Civ ran _long_.”

“Only a few thousand years,” Grantaire joked, “depending on your definition of ‘the West’.”

Combeferre laughed. “Good one.”

“Why the specific craving for coffee?” Grantaire asked, smirking. “Was mine that awful?”

“College students just love their coffee,” Combeferre replied. “And I realized we hadn’t seen much of each other this year.”

“Still an improvement over high school, though.”

“True.”

As they got their drinks and found one of their usual tables, Grantaire began to feel increasingly awkward. Combeferre was talking about her classes, going on about one of the papers she was writing on medieval history. Grantaire thought about the unwritten essay at home on her laptop. Compared to her friend’s effortless efficiency, she seemed even more of a mess.

“Combeferre,” she began, hesitating, “I haven’t even started my essay.”

Combeferre took another sip of her coffee, looking at her strangely. “So?”

“I haven’t written anything.”

Combeferre still didn’t look worried. “Grantaire, you have almost two weeks. You have plenty of time.”

“As if that’s going to help me.”

“R, you finished your entire application last night. It’s not as if you haven’t started.”

“It might as well be. I’m not like you, Combeferre.”

“What do you mean?” She sounded concerned.

“I’m not efficient, or organized, or motivated, or… any of the things I’m supposed to be. Even if I somehow make it into university, what am I going to do from there?” She hated the tears that were burning in the corners of her eyes, hated the thinness of her voice that meant she was about to cry, and in a café of all places.

“I didn’t just become a magically perfect student, R. I’m human, too.”

“Yeah, but at least you _can_ do it.”

“Grantaire,” Combeferre said slowly, “are you sure you really want to go to university?”

“I know I don’t want to keep doing _this_ ,” she answered, waving a hand as if to indicate all of the events of the past year, and the years before it.

“But do you really want to go, or just think that you should?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s alright. Think about it.”

Grantaire nodded, following Combeferre to leave. She paid for their drinks with the last few dollars she had, feeling it an inadequate way to repay her friend.

“Relax!” Combeferre said as she turned to walk back to her dorm.

 

The messages began that night.

_You can do this._

_Breathe._

_I’m proud of you._

Grantaire didn’t reply to them, but by morning the essay was done.

 

“This is rough, but your basic idea is solid,” Combeferre said.

"Your markings suggest otherwise,” Grantaire said dryly, hiding her disappointment at her trainwreck of an essay. The paper was covered with red ink, corrections and rewordings from Combeferre’s sharp eye and even sharper editing skills.

“It’s mostly minor, though. Nobody writes a perfect essay on the first try, and I mean _nobody_. If only. So send it to me again whenever you get to reworking it.”

“You don’t have to look at it again,” Grantaire protested. “You’ve already done way too much – probably more than I have.”

“Nonsense. Think of me as free college counseling.”

“Thanks,” Grantaire said quietly. “For everything.”

“Of course. That’s what I’m here for.”

 

By the end of the week, Grantaire had submitted her application.

“I thought I was supposed to be less stressed when I’d finished,” she remarked.

“But now that it’s out of your hands, you’re even more worried?” Combeferre guessed.

“Exactly.”

“I know the feeling,” she agreed.

 

The waiting was bad, but with Combeferre’s help things were never as awful as they could have been. The times she got smashed, Grantaire found, were less and less frequent when Combeferre was around. And when she wasn’t, Grantaire threw herself into martial arts and painting, and she was too tired to worry about the application afterwards. There were days, still, where the anxiety was overwhelming, and then the messages on her phone would be the small, small things that kept her from spinning completely out of control again.

 

In mid-December, she arrived home from kickboxing to find a letter waiting for her. It was thick, but not thick enough to be an acceptance letter, she thought. She called Combeferre.

“I got a letter.”

“Have you opened it?”

“I can’t. Get over and open it for me.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Combeferre was at her door in minutes, flushed and looking equally excited as Grantaire felt, though decidedly less nervous. Grantaire stuck out the letter for her to take.

“Okay. The moment of truth.”

“Spare me the dramatics and open the damn thing,” Grantaire mumbled. She looked determinedly at the floor, not wanting Combeferre’s expression to give it away, both wanting to know and afraid of the answer.

She heard the sound of unfolding paper, followed by Combeferre’s shriek.

“You got in! I knew it!”

“I got in?” Grantaire repeated incredulously as Combeferre grabbed her for a hug.

“Congratulations, R! Come on, I am taking you out to celebrate.”

Grantaire followed, still dazed but the happiest she had been for some time.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this series is deceptively funny, I think. This is going to end up being really long, and all the Amis will eventually be a part of it. The idea was partially my friend Hannah's, and the Combeferre & R relationship mostly comes from Anna.  
> Also, writing Grantaire is hard.


End file.
